FREE PRESS: It is great news that Fox's Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were released over the weekend. But this incident raises many troubling questions. Here are a half dozen:
1) Both Centanni and Wiig were forced -- at gunpoint -- to convert to Islam. Has any Palestinian religious or political leader condemned that? Has UN Secretary General Kofi Anan said a word about it? (Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the UN Charter.) How about the leading Muslim organizations in the U.S. and Europe? If not, why not?
2) In statements made after their release, Centanni and Wiig emphasized that their experience should not discourage news organizations from covering Gaza, from "telling the story of the Palestinian people...Come and tell the story. It's a wonderful story," Centanni said.
Is the mission of Fox's London bureau to tell the "wonderful story" of the British people? Do reporters cover the White House in order to tell the "wonderful story" of George W. Bush?
This is patronizing and it's pandering. Journalism and public relations are both respectable professions. But there is a difference between them.
3) Will Palestinian authorities prosecute those responsible for this crime? Or have they already guaranteed the perpetrators amnesty and other benefits?
Will the media aggressively attempt to find the answer? Or will the failure of Palestinian authorities to hold criminals accountable not be seen as part of the "wonderful story" that needs to be told?
4) Will journalists investigate whether there is any connection between those who committed this crime and the murder, in 2003, of three Americans who were part of a delegation on its way to interview Palestinian candidates for the Fulbright Scholarship? Those responsible for that crime have never been brought to justice and the issue has been allowed to fade.
5) The fact that Palestinian leaders managed to secure the release of these journalists surely suggests that they could secure the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier as well. Why has that not happened?
6) Finally, can we hope for some self-examination by the media about the extent to which kidnappings and other threats intimidate journalists and influence their coverage, not least in such places as Gaza and Lebanon? I wouldn't bet on it.
I tend to grow weary of blanket indictments of what the media does or does not do. It's a parlor game that "the media" cannot win. There are a million angles to a million stories that will never and realistically can never get covered. Cliff asks important questions. Others might have equally important questions about the elections in the Congo, what the rise of Islamism means in Somalia, and literally thousands of others that have as of yet been unanswered. To expect the media to create a 1:1 scale map of the universe as it exists at the moment of publication and based on one's own biases seems to be both patently unfair and absurd, inclined to make one's grievences seem all the more potent as a result of appearing to be ignored. And in an age when one can rise to prominence outside of the realm of the media, through, say, blogging or any other fairly prominent platform, rather than complain about what others are not doing, why not try to do it yourself?
But on the whole, Cliff raises good and important questions that deserve to be answered because the media has given this issue ample coverage, and as a consequence, the apparent ommissions are ones that we are entitled to think someone would address. In other words, in the midst of all-Jonbenet all the time, this is a case where legitimate questions could have been asked were the media, and especially televised media, and particularly Fox (which, from my random daily samples has been the most committed to the breathless coverage of the decade-old murder of a pretty little white girl even though thousands of children die from violence every year, and which has a dog in this hunt) a little more committed to asking the tough questions.
Update: I exchanged a couple of emails with Cliff May today, and here is what he had to say about this issue and my post:
I think you make a good point re my questions. Actually, I want to hear what Centanni and Wiig say next, after the immediate rush of events has died down, and when they don’t have Hamas officials standing next to them.
At that point, it should be possible to judge whether they understand how they’ve been manipulated -- or not.
This is a very useful argument -- for their own safety and perhaps as the result of something like Stockholm Syndrome, we probably ought not to place too much pressure on them right now, but once they have had time to adjust, see their families, and the like, let's hope they have something to contribute to a discussion that, as May amply argues, we ought to be having.
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